This crafty Japanese-American duo from Olympia, WA open their second full-length with "Under The Cherry Blossom", a gentle electronic set piece built around an oriental melodic riff and a sweetly swooping theremin. Typically consigned to creepy sci-fi soundtracks, this much-misunderstood instrument exudes uncommon warmth and grace here, as if it were the principal creature in a harmonious forest. Later it returns, both as a lithe counterpart to the swaggering funk groove of another instrumental, "Dr. Caligari", and as the lead "vocalist" for a simmering, serene cover of "Loving You", hitting the same impossibly high notes Minnie Riperton once did, and seemingly more naturally at that.

Those tracks alone give you a sense of IQU's penchant for the eclectic and the nearly unclassifiable. The rest of Sun Q doesn't disappoint; it impulsively branches off in various directions, most enticingly straight for the dance floor. Boasting an infectious synth line, "The 9th Line" makes like a playful, straight-out-of-Paisley-Park, indie-dance recasting of Pink's "Get the Party Started". "Dirty Boy", however, is a truer successor to a classic anthem like "Groove Is in the Heart"; taking the booty-shaking vocoder funk/rock route, it features a simple, insistent chorus ("I will love you today / if you'll love me tomorrow") powered by Michiko Swiggs's thoroughly teasing vocal. Add occasional turntable scratching of voices shouting out "Surprise!" and you've got some of the most immediate, enjoyable dance music conceived in years.

"Hamachi" threatens to head into darker territories with its slamming pulse and Kento Oiwa's fuzz-distorted raps, but it's really just a fun ode to some sort of sushi, with cheery organ on the chorus and goofy laughter at the outro. "Crazy" breezily strings together an assortment of beats and vocal samples, all of which seem a little off until they're eventually grounded by a jazzy guitar riff that's catchy enough to sell laundry detergent. The title track comes close to Pizzicato Five's mid-tempo lounge-pop, right down to the horn samples and the half-English, half-Japanese vocals. Inspiration wanes a little on the repetitive "Puka" -- but notice how expertly Oiwa and Swiggs interject random noisy outbursts into their robotic groove. Closer "A Pile of Cherries" fades in with a secondary riff from "Under the Cherry Blossom" and then builds it up, piling samples and motifs from the album's other songs into a grandiose wall of sound. It skillfully brings Sun Q full circle -- and yes, even the beloved theremin reappears.